Snails used for human consumption - the case of meat and slime (Rethink Priorities)

The number of snails produced for human consumption increases gradually every year. Still, there is very little awareness about the details of snail production or how serious an ethical problem it might be. In this report (full version available here1), I assess snail production and farming-specific welfare concerns, and discuss some scale, neglectedness, and tractability considerations. Some of our main findings are:

Welfare concerns:

• In the farm: High density, movement restrictions, and different kinds of diseases result in high mortality rates.
• Processing: Commonly traded alive, and again with virtually no space to move.
• Slaughter: Typically boiled to death.

Scope: It can be estimated that between 2.9B to 7.7B2 snails were slaughtered for their meat worldwide in 2016.

Neglectedness: invertebrate welfare is an issue that has not gained much attention within the effective altruism community. Even in academia, there is a general lack of concern for studying welfare-related issues about snails.

Tractability: The most prevalent snail pathologies and their possible treatments need to be identified. We know of no large-scale initiatives to improve the situation of snails used for human purposes.

Although the snail market looks strong, a sharp increase in production is not expected. All things considered, I conclude that investing specific efforts on behalf of snails used as food may not be cost-effective. Still, further research may uncover specific welfare measures on behalf of these animals.